


Once Again, the Wings of Freedom

by gracetheworld



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Age gaps are based on Shingeki Kyojin! Chuugakkou, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, High School, M/M, Modern Era, Reincarnation, Titans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 10:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12167313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracetheworld/pseuds/gracetheworld
Summary: The three walls of Maria, Rose, and Sheena; the man eating giants called titans and the humans who could turn into them; the story of a boy who was called Humanity’s Last Hope; those were but mere myths of so long ago with no evident proof of their authenticity. It was only a children story nowadays.Still, like the Arthurian Myths, there were scholars who studied them; there were people who believed the legends. One in particular was a group of Paradis High School, who named themselves the Survey Club in homage to the legendary Survey Corps of the Legend of the Walls, headed by one Hange Zöe, an eccentric scientist with an obsession to the titans of the Legend of the Walls.It was the lifelong goal of the club to uncover genuine proofs that the legend was indeed real, and on a certain long weekend, the group decided to venture to Hercynian Forest, one of the oldest forest in Germany, believed to be a forest just outside the area believed to be Wall Maria.That weekend was the day everything changed.





	Once Again, the Wings of Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> Self-beta'ed, so advanced apologies for any mistakes you may (and probably will) found in this fic.
> 
> Canon divergence is post the group sealing Wall Maria and going out to see the sea.

**Eins**

_In the Forest of Old_

* * *

 

The three walls of Maria, Rose, and Sheena; the man eating giants called titans and the humans who could turn into them; the story of a boy who was called Humanity’s Last Hope; those were but mere myths of so long ago with no evident proof of their authenticity. It was only a children story nowadays.

Still, like the Arthurian Myths, there were scholars who studied them; there were people who believed the legends. One in particular was a group of Paradis High School (a school in Frankfurt), who named themselves the Scout Regiment in homage to the legendary Survey Corps of the Legend of the Walls, headed by one Hange Zöe, an eccentric scientist to be with an obsession to the titans of the Legend of the Walls.

Really, it wasn’t only the club leader who was eccentric. There was their supervisor, the history teacher with thick eyebrow and cunning mind named Erwin Smith. The vice leader, Mike Zacharias the vice leader who had a thing about sniffing people on their first meeting, only to sneer afterwards. Moblit Berner, the secretary of the club who was also probably Hange’s care taker at this point of her… eccentricities. Next was Levi Ackerman, the short clean-freak third year student who mastered many forms of martial arts and cleaning techniques. Under Levi’s tutelage were Petra Ral, Oluo Bozado, Gunther Schultz and Eld Jinn who worshiped the ground he walked upon.

Those were the veterans, and then, there were the new students, all first years. Starting from Eren Yeager, the hot headed boy with a ridiculously strong will, his best friends Mikasa Ackerman, Levi’s younger cousin who was as skilled as Levi himself, and Armin Arlert, the genius boy with mind as cunning as Erwin. There was also Eren’s rival, Jean Kirstein who had the misfortune of having the affectionate nickname Horseface (courtesy of Eren) and his best friend, Marco Bott, who arguably was probably one of the only sane people in the club. There were also Connie Springer and Sasha Blouse, the duo idiot as people secretly called them (not in a bad way, mind you), one was a muscle head and the other was a food mania. There was also the couple in love, Ymir Priesterin and Historia “Krista” Lenz. Last but not least were the ‘Lady’s Man’ (not) Reiner Braun and his perfectly sane counterpart with sweating issue, Bertolt Hoover.

All in all, the club was really full of weird people, but they got along well, both old and new members. They had fun doing researches on the Legend of the Walls together and came up with many theories, both plausible ones and the outrageous ones. The plausible ones were of course courtesy of Armin, Erwin and surprisingly, Eren. In fact, most of the time Armin and Erwin could come up with plausible theories was because Eren had helped with deciphering some stuff in the old, public accessible manuscripts.

Eren had claimed that it was because his parents were both interested in those stuff too. His mother had a degree in Ancient Languages, specializing in Ancient Germanic Languages, and his father, though a doctor, had a lot of interest in the Legend of the Walls too, so Eren was pretty much well informed and taught about things regarding the Legend of the Walls.

Besides deciphering manuscripts and coming up with theories, they sometimes also tried to replicate technologies written in said manuscripts, such as the famed ‘Three Dimensional Maneuver Gear’, yet much to Hange’s disappointment, they hadn’t succeeded on it, since there was lack of description of the gear beyond ‘it helped soldiers to fly by launching hooks with cables towards titans and building structures with the help of gas’. There wasn’t even a picture of it!

Still, it had somewhat disappointed Hange that they hadn’t been able to find any single real proof about the legends being real. Presumably, two thousand years had passed since the era of the Walls, and the famed Walls themselves had long since gone. There were no remains of titans uncovered by archeologists either. It made sense since according to some manuscripts, titans’ bodies evaporated soon after their death.

The legends had said that titans had no life spans, so if they were true, then titans should still exist somehow, but it also said that Humanity’s Last Hope had eradicated them all, and if it was true, then there would really be no more titans left, except for the Humanity’s Last Hope themselves who, at the end of the legend, was said to have encased themselves in unbreakable crystal in grief after the death of their comrades.

Hange felt like frowning. Surely, the miracle guy hadn’t killed all titans off, right? How could one man, even if he could turn into a titan himself, kill a whole species by himself? Alright, the legend never said that Humanity’s Last Hope killed all of them by themselves, but they pretty much implied it. Even with help though, surely they missed one, right?

Hange felt like banging their head to the table. They were in their third year now, and they were going to graduate soon. They would really like to find just a single proof about the legends being real, even if it was just a small proof. It would have made everything worth it, really.

“Oi, shitty glasses, will you stop brooding already?” Hange looked up at the annoyed voice belonging to the short fellow third year, Levi, who looked very pissed off. Behind him, Eren was trying to calm the senior down before Levi did something bad, like, beat Hange for example. It had happened in the past, after all.

“But I really want to find just one single proof that the Legends are true! Imagine what will happen!” Hange exclaimed, moving their arm out dramatically. “More of the manuscripts will surely be more accessible, we can research more stuffs about it, learn more about the titans. Gods, the titans…” They whispered the last part dreamily.

“I’m sure we can find something during our trip next week, Senior Hange.” Eren assured, smiling. “Harz Mittelgebirge is part of the Hercynian Forest, a rather ancient forest, maybe we can find something inside the caves there or something.” The brunet pointed out, trying to lift Hange’s spirit up, the pure, sweet boy.

Hange instantly lightened up at that. “You’re right, Eren! You’re absolutely right! I can’t give up now! We still have next week’s trip and the trips after that too!” their eyes lightened as if fire was burning behind them. “Alright guys, let’s not dilly dally around and prepare for our trip next week! We will find a proof for sure!”

“You’re noisy, shitty glasses.” Levi growled out, putting his cup of coffee down to the table rather harshly.

“Stop raining on my parade, you shortie!”

“Why you-!!”

“Senior Levi!”

“Oooh, cat fight!”

“Reiner, no!”

* * *

 

On their long weekend, the Scout Regiment members found themselves in the town of Seesen, Lower Saxony. They were going to split into two groups. Most of them were going to stay in the hotel as backup, while the rest would be exploring the forest. The exploration group consisted of Erwin, Hange, Levi, Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Jean and Marco.

After resting for one hour in the hotel, they set out for the forest. Eren seemed to be at ease in doing these sorts of thing, hiking up trails and the lot. Hange was pretty grateful that they had Eren. At least this way, they won’t get lost. Eren was really reliable.

Still, Hange wondered how Eren was able to move with ease around this forest while bringing that big bag of his, whatever it was he was bringing. He hadn’t said anything about it, and Hange knew that it wasn’t camping tools, since those were carried by Erwin, Levi, Jean and Marco, while Hange and Mikasa brought their food, and Armin and Eren were in charge of the copies of the manuscripts and maps they had.

It was midway when they felt the ground shook for a split second, not long enough to be called a normal earthquake. Not even five seconds later, they felt the ground shook again, and again, and again. The tremor became harder, the intervals between them shorter.

“W-what is that?” Armin squeaked, moving his body towards Mikasa as he clutched on her jacket, hiding behind her, eyes wide and face pale.

A complete one hundred eighty to Armin’s panicked look, Hange was drooling and anticipating. “Could it be? Could it be that titans do still exist and one of them is here at the moment?!” they asked as they wiped the drool from their mouth. They took out their camera, preparing to take picture of what they believed to be a titan incoming.

“Shit, if that’s true, aren’t we supposed to, like, run right now?! They eat humans!” Jean exclaimed, looking panicked as well, though probably less than Armin. “Agh, Club Leader, we really shouldn’t be here if it’s really a titan!”

“Stop worrying. It couldn’t be a titan. It’s probably just earthquake shockwave or something.” Levi argued, looking none too pleased with Hange’s excitement and Armin and Jean’s panicking. “Can’t we get a move on, already?”

“No way! These tremors are becoming more frequent and there’s possibly a titan incoming towards us! I’m not leaving until I can take at least a photo of it!” Hange argued. “If I can take a picture of it, then we can prove that the legends are real! That’s our club’s lifelong goal, you know!”

“That goal’s only three years old!” Levi retorted.

“Guys, we shouldn’t argue right now.” Marco tried to calm the arguing seniors and his panicking friends, to no avail.

“Marco is right. We should all calm down.” Erwin tried to take control of the situation too, yet Levi and Hange kept on arguing.

“Armin, calm down. If there’s really something dangerous, I’ll protect you.” Mikasa promised, squeezing the shoulder of the blond boy in an attempt to comfort the boy.

“How will you do it, Mikasa? If there’s really a titan out there approaching us, we don’t have any weapon to kill it! We’re going to be titan food!” Armin cried out, squeezing his eye shut as he covered both his ears with his hands in an attempt to block the argument between Levi and Hange out.

The arguments and the panic didn’t stop. The group gradually became less aware of their surroundings, too immersed in either their fight or panic, so less aware they didn’t notice the tremors becoming more frequent and a distant roar travelling through the air. Not until the source made itself known.

A giant, naked humanoid being as tall as the trees around them, probably ten meters high, with no reproducing organ. It was looking at them like they were food.

No… to it, they _were_ food, for they knew, this thing must be… titan. The titan was still staring at them, not making any more yet.

“Oh gods, a real titan.” Hange whispered, lifting her camera and pressed the capture button.

It was only when a click was heard, and a bright flash from the camera flashed for a split second, did the titan moved. It moved closer towards them, its big hand reaching out to the group.

“Shit, run!” Erwin commanded, trying to stay calm.

“Eren, where’s Eren?!” Mikasa asked, looking around in panic, as she spotted her other best friend nowhere. She was sure that he was here a few minutes ago, he was incredibly quiet ever since the first tremor, but Mikasa hadn’t even noticed that he was gone!

“Forget about Eren for now, Mikasa, save yourself!” Levi ordered to his cousin as he grabbed her by the arm and ran from the titan.

“Ah!” Mikasa stopped running when she heard Armin’s voice. She looked back and saw Armin had slipped and fell to the ground, the titan looming over him. He looked so scared, but it made sense, since he was going to be eaten soon.

Mikasa tried to run towards Armin, but Levi held her back. “Mikasa, if you go, you’ll just get yourself killed, damn it! We don’t have any means to fight titans right now!” he hissed, his grip on Mikasa’s wrist tight.

“But Armin!” Mikasa retorted, eyes glistening with unshed tears.

“S-Someone, please--!” Armin cried out, crouching on the ground, eyes squeezed shut in fear.

Mikasa saw the titan’s hand reaching towards Armin. Fear filled her. “ARMIN!” She yelled out, as she watched the hand about to grab Armin—

Only for it to be cut away clean.

Mikasa’s eyes widened as she saw someone flying around the woods with two shining blades—no, he wasn’t flying, and he wasn’t just anyone either. He was—“Eren?!”

**Author's Note:**

> I've always loved reincarnation fics, and wanted to try my hand on one as well, and not the crossover kind of reincarnation fic, so here I am. I wanted to try writing my own twist of the SnK reincarnation au troupe, and I hope that this will be a fresh take on them, if only by a bit. 
> 
> Thank you for taking time to read this fic, I hope you enjoy it! See you on the next chapter!


End file.
